interfered. And you decided he had to die for that.”
Whitehall turned his head and stared at McAuliff. “I killed him because
it was necessary.” Whitehall transferred his attention back to Barak
Moore. The second block came loose with far less effort than the first.
Barak reached into the space and rocked the stone until the cracks
widened and it slid out. Floyd took the block and placed it carefully
to one side.
Whitehall crouched opposite the hole, shining the flashlight into it.
“It’s an archive case. Let me have it.” He handed Floyd the flashlight
and reached across the pit as Barak pulled the receptacle out of the
dirt and gave it to him. “Extraordinary!” said Charley, fingering the
oblong box, his knee pressed against the top of the first receptacle on
the floor beside him. Whitehall was not going to let either out of his
possession.
“The case, you mean, mon?” asked Moore.
“Yes.” Whitehall turned the box over, then held it up as Floyd shone the
beam of light on it. “I don’t think any of you understand. Without the
keys or proper equipment, these bloody things take hours to open.
Watertight, airtight, vacuumed, and crushproof. Even a starbit drill
could not penetrate the metal … Here! See.” The scholar pointed to
some lettering on the bottom surface. “Hitchcock Vault Company,
Indianapolis. The finest in the world. Museums, libraries …
government archives everywhere use Hitchcock. Simply extraordinary.”
When the sound came, it had the impact of an earthshattering explosion.
Although the noise was distant-that of the whining low gear of an
automobile racing up the long entrance drive from the road below.
And then another.
The four men looked back and forth at one another. They were stunned.
Outside there was an intrusion that was not to be. Could not be.
“Oh my God, Jesus, mon! ” Barak jumped out of the pit.
“Take these tools, you damn fool!” cried Whitehall.
“Your fingerprints!”
Floyd, rather than Barak, leaped into the cistern, grabbed the hammer
and chisel, and put them into the pockets of his field jacket. “.There
is only the staircase, mon! No other way !” Barak ran to the stairs.
McAuliff reached down for the first receptacle at Whitehall’s side;
simultaneously, Whitehall’s hand was on it.
“You can’t carry both, Charley,” said Alex in answer to Whitehall’s
manic stare. “This one’s mine!” He grabbed the box, jerked it out from
under Whitehall’s grip, and followed Moore to the stairs. The
automobiles, in grinding counterpoint, were getting nearer.
The four men leaped up the stairs in single file and raced through the
short corridor into the darkened, rugless living room. The beams of
headlights could be seen shining through the slits in the teak shutters.
The first car had reached the compact parking area; the sounds of doors
opening could be heard. The second vehicle roared in only seconds
behind. In the corner of the room could be seen, in the strips of
light, the cause for the intrusion: an open-line portable radio. Barak
ran to it and with a single blow of his fist into the metal, smashed the
front and then tore out the back antennae.
Men outside began shouting. Predominately one name:
“Raymond!”
“Raymond!”
“Raymond! Where are you at, mon!”
Floyd assumed the lead and raced to the rear center door.
“This way! Quick, mon!” he whispered to the others. He yanked the door
open and held it as they all gathered.
McAuliff could see in the reflection of the pool’s light that Floyd held
a pistol in his free hand. Floyd spoke to Barak. “I will deflect them,
mon. To the west. I know the’property good, mon!”
“Be careful! You two,” said Barak to Whitehall and McAuliff. “Go
straight into the woods; we’ll meet at the raft. One-half hour from
now. No more. Whoever is there, leave. Pole down, mon. The Martha
Brae is no good without a raft, mon. Go!” He shoved Alex through the
door.
Outside, McAuliff started across the strangely peaceful lawn, with the
blue-green light of the pool illuminating from behind. Men had raced up
from the entrance drive to the sides of the house. Alex wondered if
they could see him; he was running as fast as he could toward the
seemingly impenetrable wall of forest beyond the sloping lawn. He
gripped the oblong receptacle under his right arm.
He got his answer instantly.
The insanity had started.
Gunshots!
Bullets cracked above him; abrupt detonations spaced erratically behind
him.
Men were firing pistols indiscriminately.
Oh, Jesus; he was back there again!
Long-forgotten instructions returned once more. Diagonals; make
diagonals. Short, quick spurts; but not too short.
Just enough to give the enemy a half second to assume zero aim.
He had given those instructions. To scores of men in the Che San hills.
The shouting became an overlapping chorus of hysteria; and then a single
scream pierced the symphony.
McAuliff hurled himself into the air, into the sudden growth of dense
foliage that bordered the lawn. He fell into a thicket and rolled to
his left.
On the ground, out ofsight lines, roll! Rollfor all you’re worth into a
secondposition!
Basics.
Fundamentals.
He was positive he would see men coming after him down the hill.
There weren’t.
Instead, what he saw hypnotized him, as he had been hypnotized watching
the two black revolutionaries in the high grass pretending to be wild
pigs.
Up by the house-to the west of it, actually-Floyd was reeling around and
around, the light of the pool catching the dull green of his field
jacket. He was allowing himself to be an open target, firing a pistol,
pinning the police to the sides of the house. He ran out of ammunition,
reached into his pocket, withdrew another gun, and started firing
again-now racing to the edge of the pool, in full sacrificial view.
He had been hit. Repeatedly. Blood was spreading throughout the cloth
of the field jacket and all over his trousers. The man had at least a
half dozen bullets in him, ebbing away his life, leaving him only
moments to live.
“McAuliffl” The whispered shout was from his right.
Barak Moore, his grotesque shaved head glistening with sweat in the
filtered moonlight, threw himself down beside Alex. “We get out of
here, mon! Come!” He tugged at McAuliff s drenched shirt.
“For God’s sake! Can’t you see what’s happening up there? That man’s
dying!”
Barak glanced up through the tangled overgrowth. He spoke calmly. “We
are committed till death. In its way, it is a luxury. Floyd knows
that.”
“For what, for Christ’s sake? For goddamn stinking what? You’re
goddamn madmen!”
“Let us go!” commanded Moore. “They will follow us in seconds. Floyd
is giving us this chance, you white shit, mon! ” Alex grabbed Barak’s
hand, which was still gripping his shirt, and threw it off. “That’s it,
isn’t it? I’m a white shit.
And Floyd has to die because you think so. And that guard had to die
because Whitehall thinks so! … You’re sick.”
Barak Moore paused. “You are what you are, mon. And you will not take
this island. Many, many will die, but this island will not be yours….
You will be dead, too, if you do not run with me.” Moore suddenly stood
up and ran into the forest darkness.
McAuliff looked after him, holding, the black oblong box to his chest.
Then he rose from the ground and followed the black revolutionary.
They waited at the water’s edge, the raft bobbing up and down in the
onrushing current. They were waist deep in the river, Barak checking
his wristwatch, Alex shifting his feet in the soft. mud to hold the
bamboo sides of the raft more firmly.
“We cannot wait much longer, mon,” said Barak. “I can hear them in the
hills. They come closer!”
McAuliff could not hear anything but the sounds of the rushing river and
the slapping of water against the raft. And Barak. “We can’t leave him
here!”
:’No choice. You want your head blown off, mon?”
“No. And it won’t be. We stole papers from a dead man.
At his instructions. That’s no call for being shot at.
Enough’s enough, goddammit!”
Barak laughed. “You have a short memory, mon! Up in the tall grass
there is a dead policeman. Without doubt, Floyd took at least one other
life with him; Floyd was an expert shot. Your head will be blown off-,
the Falmouth police will not hesitate.”
Barak Moore was right. Where the hell was Whitehall?
:’Was he shot? Do you know if he was wounded?”
“I think not, mon. I cannot be sure…. Charley-mon did not do as I
told him. He ran southwest into the field.”
A single shaft of light was seen a hundred yards upstream, streaking
down through the overgrown banks.
“Look!” cried Alex. Moore turned.
There was a second, then a third beam. Three dancing columns of light,
wavering toward the river below.
“No time now, mon! Get in and pole fast!”